Back From The Brink
by CryptJo
Summary: After a mission goes wrong, Piers lies comatose and Chris awaits his wakening.


Even without opening his eyes, Chris knew he wasn't home. The sterile tang of a hospital room nipped at his nostrils and he could feel the starched sheets against his twitching fingertips. Head throbbing, if it hadn't been for the lack of the taste of stale alcohol on his tongue that came with a night of drinking, he'd have sworn he was hungover. He shifted, cracked open one eye and immediately closed it again when the stark overhead light proved too much for him. More sleep. That would help.

Movement woke him. The clatter of a tray of dishes being set down on his table then the whir of machinery as the head of his bed was elevated.

"Are you awake, Mr Redfield?"

"I am now," he grunted in response to the overly cheery voice. His headache had lessened but not by much. Sharp prickles of pain flared when he opened his eyes and his gaze felt sluggish as it focussed and swept the room. Hospital. But how? Why? The attending nurse swung his table around and thrust a spoon at him with a command to eat.

"Got to keep your strength up, Mr Redfield.

In response, his stomach growled. Hospital food was never appetising but the bowl of vegetable broth in front of him looked semi-appealing, especially once his gnawing hunger had made itself known. He still had questions, but they could wait. Food first. Dipping the spoon into the soup, he saw for the first time the bruises and cuts on the back of his hand and paused, frowning. A sliver of a memory returned to him; a factory, orders to eradicate, an explosion. It was a trap. They were expected and the place was rigged to blow. He and Piers had been at the front and bore the brunt of it. Chris could remember being thrown to the side and into a wall and after that-

"Piers!"

"Mr Nivans?" The nurse dropped Chris' chart back into its holder at the bottom of the bed. "He's just a few rooms down from you. In a sorry state, that one."

The way she shook her head as she said it, the tone she used, caused a bubble of dread to form in Chris' stomach and suddenly, just like that, he was no longer hungry.

"What state?" Piers had to be okay. He hadn't gone through everything only to be taken out by a bomb. The nurse didn't answer straight away which caused Chris' worry to increase threefold.

"You eat your soup and then I'll see about getting a chair and you can visit him."

That placated him a little and while the nurse bustled out of his room to find a wheelchair he made an attempt on his soup. Three mouthfuls in, a sharp, stabbing pain in his head brought with it a wave of nausea. Pushing the table away, Chris winced at the squeak and rattle of its casters on the tiled floor. He hated this. He hated the blankness over happened to him, although the fact that he was still functioning indicated his injuries weren't severe, but worse was not knowing Piers' condition. Further squeaking from the corridor outside his room preceded the return of the nurse His stomach lurched.

"Let's get you out of this bed, Mr Redfield. She spoke in kindly, if slightly patronising tones, untucking the stiff sheets that held him in place.

"How bad is it?"

"Just a bump on the head. A few stitches. You were out cold for a while but you'll be right as-"

"Not me, woman!" Quick to regret his harsh snap, his fiery temper had got the best of him, he shot her an apologetic look and received a reproachful one in return. "Piers. How bad?"

Again came silence, the nurse's brow furrowing as she assisted him out of bed and into the chair and then finally:

"Try not to get yourself worked up, Mr Redfield."

If there was one thing almost guaranteed to get him worked up, it was being told not to. His fingers curled against the arm rests of the chair, digging into the plastic covered foam. Braced for the worst - even if he wasn't sure what the worst could be - he kept his mouth shut, lips pressed together, during the short trip out of his room, along the corridor and into Piers'.

Chris had a vague idea of what kind of shape he was in. If the cuts and scrapes on his hands and arms were anything to go by, he was pretty beaten up. With Piers, on the other hand, it was difficult to tell. Were it not for the array of equipment surrounding him - IV stand, heart monitor, ventilator - he could have sworn that Piers was merely sleeping.

"He's not come around yet," the nurse said, voice lowered to a whisper. "Talk to him."

After wheeling him to the side of Piers' bed, the nurse left him to it, advising that she'd return shortly to take him back to his own room. Chris had no idea what to say. But for the various beeps and wheezes of the machines and the quiet hum of electronics, the room was silent.

"Pull yourself together, soldier." No response. He hadn't expected one but it was worth a shot. What was he even meant to say? "I'm sorry..."

The apology came unbidden, a surprise even to himself, but it was genuine. No matter what, the people under his command suffered. It wasn't fair and yet again, he came out of it relatively unscathed. With a lack of anything substantial to say, Chris spoke about anything and nothing. He told Piers about his soup, how the nurse had a mole on her chin with three wiry hairs growing out of it, about the wheelchair and how uncomfortable it was. Light and inconsequential but for the apology, Chris droned on until the nurse came back for him.

The following morning, a different nurse arrived to serve his breakfast and announced that he was to be released after the doctor's rounds and he asked if he could go and see Piers.

"Not just now," she said with a shake of her head, then left to deliver the rest of the breakfasts. Chris picked at his food. Though his headache had greatly subsided, his concern over Piers hadn't and it gnawed at him. Although they had followed procedure, taken all precautions and couldn't have foreseen what awaited them, he still felt responsible. Piers was his soldier. His right-hand man. His friend.

Before being discharged, after his paperwork was all put in order, Chris was granted permission to visit Piers. Despite appearances, his remaining comatose state, his condition had shown signs of improvement. The ventilator was no longer required but was still on hand in case of a relapse.

"Mr Redfield?" A voice from behind made Chris turn to see a doctor, white coat, chart in one hand and a pen in the other. "You are Mr Nivans' emergency contact, correct?"

He was?

"I guess..."

"Can you confirm your telephone number for me?"

Chris recited his number and answered a few more questions on how he might be contacted before the doctor frowned and tapped his pen against the chart.

"Now, this is a worst case scenario, Mr Redfield, but I'd urge you to give it some thought should Mr Nivans' condition deteriorate. Do you know whether he is an organ donor?"

The question was like a blow to the gut. Being Piers' emergency contact was one thing but this was an entirely different matter.

"I don't-" Chris shook his head and huffed. "Is it that bad? No-one's really told me anything and I just... I don't know."

His expression softening, the doctor lowered the pen and chart and gave Chris a sympathetic smile.

"As I said, worst case scenario. He's responding well to treatment and so it's really just a waiting game."

A waiting game. If ever there was a phrase that should be stricken from a doctor's vocabulary, it was that one. It wasn't any sort of game. Chris could feel himself bristling and pushed past the doctor. He had to get out of there.

Being at home wasn't any better than being in the hospital, but at least he didn't have to put up with the bright lights, the constant murmur of noise in the background and he could have a beer. Or six. The painkillers he'd been given quite clearly stated on the bottle to avoid alcohol, but Chris chose to ignore the instruction, tossed three into his mouth and washed them down with a glug of brew. It wasn't wise, he knew, but he didn't care. He'd had a shitty couple of days and just wanted forget all about them. Except he couldn't. Not while Piers was still lying in that hospital bed, unconscious. Goddamn it all.

Chris' return to work was forestalled for a few days longer than he would have liked. Ordered to take some time off for recuperation, he found himself rattling around his home, bereft of anything to do. Mindlessly flicking around the television channels brought up a slew of chat shows, with accusations of cheating lovers and demands for DNA testing, daytime soaps with dramatic music and laughable cliff-hangers and infomercials, in which people carried out the simplest of tasks in the most stupid ways. It was mind-numbing, though.

Morning slid into afternoon and Chris resisted the urge to have a liquid lunch. Instead, he bundled himself up against the cold, biting wind and headed out to the hospital. When he arrived, his first port of call was the pharmacy to see if he could sweet-talk his way into getting some more of those painkillers. They were good and strong and Chris had actually slept the whole night through. Besides, it wouldn't do any harm to have a few in stock, just in case. He popped a couple into his mouth and swallowed them with a bland coffee he purchased from the vending machine in the corridor outside Piers' room.

"Hey, Piers." Pulling up a seat, he greeted the slumbering man and wasn't surprised when no reply came. Disappointed, but not surprised. Again, he found he was struggling to think of things to say, so ended up telling Piers about the garbage he'd watched on television before leaving the house.

"And so you put your boiled egg in, squeeze it and it comes out square. Isn't that something? Square eggs." He chuckled, but it was strained and mirthless, tailing away to a sad sigh. "When're you going to come back to me, buddy?"

Emotion wasn't something Chris dealt with well. Guilt. Regret. Worry. None of it sat well with him even if, as he told himself, he should be used to it by now. And it didn't lessen. If anything, with each visit to Piers' bedside it got worse. One day, he arrived to find a nurse using a machine to bend and stretch his legs. To prevent atrophy, she explained, packing up her equipment and when she left, she gave the same advice he'd heard from everyone.

"Just talk to him."

By the seventh day, Chris has relayed what felt like his entire life story to Piers. From childhood, his teens, into adulthood and to present day, he told Piers everything he could think of. He even told him about things he'd never told another living person. It was strangely cathartic, this unburdening of his soul. Never would he dream of doing this, not with anyone, but once he'd started talking, and knowing that Piers couldn't answer back or, probably, even hear him, it came surprisingly easily to keep on talking.

On day nine, everything changed. Chris arrived at the hospital as usual, got himself yet another bland coffee from the vending machine, made his way to Piers' room and stopped at the door. The cup fell, hot coffee splashing his leg as it went but he didn't feel it. It didn't register at all because his attention was solely focussed on the empty bed in front of him. The machines were gone, the sheets were gone, the charts were gone. Piers was gone and Chris' heart sank into his belly.

"Hello, Mr Redfield!" A cheery voice behind shook him from his near-catatonic staring. One of the nurses – Mary? Marie? – gave him a bright smile but he couldn't understand why. Piers was gone and she was smiling like Chris had just turned up and given her a winning lottery ticket. Why? His ire rose, hands clenching into fists by his side. He'd never hit her, wouldn't ever raise his hand to a woman, but he wanted to. He wanted to wipe that smug, happy, chipper grin off her face and-

"Mr Nivans has been moved!" She said, pointing down the corridor. "You should go and see him, Mr Redfield. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised."

Leaving Chris still standing in the doorway, she hurried off to carry on her work. What the hell was going on? There was only one way to find out so off he set, striding along the corridor in the direction the nurse had pointed. He'd been moved? Wait. Pleasantly surprised? That put haste in his steps and by the time he skidded to a halt outside the room at the end of the corridor, he had been practically sprinting.

"Piers…"

The sense of relief that washed over him very nearly caused his knees to buckle and he had to grasp the door to steady himself. In front of him, sitting in a chair by the window, a pale, drawn but very much awake, alive and well Piers. When the man turned to him, hearing his name spoken, and smiled, Chris' throat constricted. He was as close to tears as he'd ever been but he swallowed hard, forcing down his emotion and walked into the room, giving the younger man a small nod of greeting.

"Welcome back, soldier."


End file.
